As the school year begins, it is important to create a safe place for your students, no matter the age of the children that you work with. At any age, children can struggle with emotional challenges, like trying to find their independence, academic pressure, family problems and being liked by their peers, just to name a few. If you have students that are struggling with issues like these or others, it is important to see that they receive help in the form of school counselor or therapist. What you can do as their teacher, is to create an environment that helps alleviate these problems within the classroom.

The Most Important Variable is how you relate to your students. Were you in a similar situation in your life? Talk about that but be careful not to focus the entire conversation on yourself. The challenge will be creating an emotionally safe environment without compromising your role as their teacher. Your students will need to understand that you are in charge in your classroom, but at the same time you can be a caring adult in their life who is in their corner and ready to help wherever you can.

Effective Ways to Begin the School Year. Establishing ground rules in your classroom is important. One of the top ground rules should be emphasizing to students that it is important to be kind to one another. They must be caring and kind to everyone in the classroom, including you as the teacher. Towards the beginning of the year, they can participate in exercises to help them get to know each other to help build peer relationships.

A Few Other Things to Consider. Begin each week by giving each student an opportunity to share what they did over the weekend. Look for ways to tie the curriculum into their personal lives. Have the students create a journal where they can either write in or draw pictures of their feelings for the day or the week depending on how much time you have. Identify children who seem to be struggling and make a point to reach out to them.

Excerpts found at Edutopia